The Deceiver's Web
by Mellanor
Summary: It has been six years since Harry's graduation, and nearly seven since Voldemort's uprising began. Draco is rising high in the ranks of the Death Eaters, but where are his true loyalties? What are his true intentions? Feedback appreciated.
1. Bittersweet Exchange

Muggle eyes slid away from Draco when he entered, never alighting upon him, never seeing. It had taken him months to get used to that. Being invisible. Now he hardly noticed, except to be glad that they never seemed to come close enough to actually touch him. To touch him, even accidentally, would have been to admit that he was real. _ Muggles will never see what they do not believe_. How contemptuously easy, then, for a wizard to draw a curtain across their mind's eye. And thus… another man stepped out of Draco's path, unseeing.

It was a common pub, indistinguishable at a glance from a thousand others; he had long since given up trying to keep track of the names. It was easier to remember them by street name and number, anyway. _This is 117 Whitfax. The time before it was 56 Bootblack Row, and before that… I can't remember._ And at this bar, as he had at all the others, sat Potter.

_He always gets here first,_ Draco thought, not for the first time. …_Old habit? _"Potter," he said neutrally, sliding onto the stool next to the man, silvered hair whispering along the collar of his finely tailored robes. 

"Malfoy." The Auror's clothes would have been unremarkable in any Muggle gathering, though they always seemed ill-fitting. _More to do with the wearer than the tailor, I expect. _His old foe had grown into a tall and gangly man in the few years since graduation. Untidy, too, just as that ridiculous mop of hair had been threatening defiantly since they were children. "Were you followed?" he asked, staring unconcernedly into his glass as though the actual answer were irrelevant. There was a hint of blue shadowing his gaunt jaw.

"Of course. Same as you." Draco shrugged. "It's a Ministry man. Nothing I can't clean up after I leave." He caught the grimace on the other man's face, and resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "Memory charms, Potter, memory charms. I know better than to kill a Ministry agent."

For the first time since he had sat down, Potter looked at him. Scowled at him. "So you've said. And said. I still haven't decided whether or not I believe you."

"And I still haven't decided whether or not you're a fool," Draco said lightly. "As soon as you know your decision, I have the feeling I'll know mine." He rubbed the new close-cropped growth of beard that ran along his jaw. "As it happens, that's not why we're here. Your list?" With those two small words, there was a rasp of steel in his soft, drawling voice.

"If you want this list, you'd better hope yours performs better than last time," Potter said warningly. "Three of the people on _your_ last list were killed or captured by Aurors before I even had time to make it back to headquarters and report. And one of the other four was made a rather gruesome example of by Voldemort the day after, while arrest papers were still being drawn up." One hand rested on his breast pocket, though he made no effort to retrieve the paper ostensibly inside. "We had to grow the rest of her body back from the pieces, just to identify her."

"Bella never did know how to stay out of trouble. And that knife cuts both ways, you know," Draco pointed out. "One of the minor officeholders on your list was stabbed by a Muggleborn whore in Soho the night we planned to take him. They had danced the dance before, it would seem. A little money, a little lust, and far too much to drink; and he raised a hand and belt to the girl perhaps once too often. It was a very neat job, too," he added, thoughtfully. "Right through the heart. We might have found a use for her later, but she ran out into the street afterwards, naked and bloody and screaming her head off for the authorities. And that sort of thing we _do _frown on." He smiled innocently, knowing full well how much his counterpart hated hearing what happened to the names he put forward. _Perhaps he should be thankful he doesn't know what Lark and Arron did to the girl, when they shut her up. Though he'd likely think I ordered it. _"What would your superiors think," he wondered aloud, inner eyes still seeing the girl's huddled form, "if they knew what you were doing to get these names?"

Potter said nothing, though his eyes flashed with anger. _Yes, you do hate what you do, don't you? But what I offer is far too much for you to pass up. _"Enough talk, Malfoy. Let's make the exchange and be done with it." He slapped the list down on the bar, (right into a small ring of beer on the countertop, Draco noticed in irritation) making the bartender eye him warily. The man never once flicked an eye Draco's way. He never would. 

"Temper, temper." Draco swiped the sodden list from the bar and dropped a small folded square of parchment into the Auror's open palm. His eyes scanned the list quickly, and he gave an appreciative whistle. "Vintemann? Now there's a tasty morsel. What did he do?" A napkin on the bartop proved ideal for swabbing up the moisture on the parchment before the ink could run.

"He's been embezzling funds from St. Mungo's for years. Normally, in chaotic times like these, the ministry is willing to overlook the crimes in exchange for putting the person to work for us. But this one…" He shrugged. "He tried to take the money and run. Close to a hundred thousand galleons worth." The look on Draco's face must have betrayed some of his astonishment and disbelief: a tidy portion of that stolen sum might well have been donated by his father. "Nervy bastard, isn't he? We recovered the largest part of the money when Lowell and Balonn tried to take him in a run-down Belfast flat last week, but he managed to Apparate out, and that's the last we've heard of him."

Draco smiled unpleasantly, carefully sliding the still-damp list into the inner pocket of his robe. "You'll be hearing of him again, and soon," he promised. "A man that greedy has other appetites, I'll wager; I'd be surprised if we couldn't track him down within the week." Still, charges or no charges, Alfred Vintemann was a public figure held in high esteem: the Dark Lord would be pleased.

Unfolding the little piece of paper, Potter mirrored Draco's own movement from moments before. "Jacob Nordenthal?" he asked quietly, not seeming even to see the answering nod. "I had dinner with him yesterday, in his home." As he spoke the words, he absently refolded the list and pocketed it, then stared at his empty hands as though wondering what they were. The Auror sounded tired, tired, tired. Not furious, as Draco had expected. "He talked about the way things used to be, before the war, and we drank to the good old days…" Trailing off, he looked up. "Are you sure?" His brows drew together over his piercing gaze.

"Positive." Draco met the taller man's eyes glassily. "He's been ours almost from the beginning. Never killed but once, though he's been useful in other ways. Lately, though, he's been heard to say that he wished things were different. That maybe we should seek peace with the wizarding world." He grimaced, picking at the bar with a manicured fingernail. "Very foolish of him. Jacob has always had a big mouth." 

Curiously, Potter's face grew angry. _He doesn't like to hear me speak of the man in such familiar terms,_ he realized. He realized, as well, that his sullen counterpart was getting that look of stubbornness and guilty silence that he must have thought passed for cunning. "You can't save him," Draco said firmly, his voice a shade more harsh than he had intended. "Disloyalty is not tolerated." There was no need to state by whom. "If you don't take him down, I shouldn't doubt that we'd get the order tomorrow. And there's no place you could put him that one of us couldn't reach." Potter looked willing to dispute the claim, but Draco plowed on. "If you're really his friend, then consider this: one way or another, he doomed himself from the outset. At least you can give him the gift of mercy. Do you think Macnair or Torm would do the same, Potter?" The mention of the two sadistic killers had ended the argument, Draco knew. He could see defeat in the slump of the other man's shoulders. Oddly enough, it only made him more angry. "You were always so quick to accept the other names I gave you; names of people you didn't like or didn't care about. I guess it's a bit different, finding out that not every killer walks around with a black mask and skull-and-serpent mark. Well, wake up, Potter," he hissed. "Not every villain wears the Mark, and not every woman is a maiden. I have a feeling you'll like my next list a lot less."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Potter said, a shade too loudly, voice simmering with anger. When Draco shook his head and refused to answer, he snorted in derision, and turned to face the Death Eater fully. "If any of these names have been lies, Malfoy," he promised, pointing, "you'll wish Voldemort had burned you alive and strung you up by what was left. I'll not kill any man on just your say-so."

"Could you say that bit about the Dark Lord and killing for me a bit louder please? The three Muggles in the corner booth look like they want to hear it again. " He gave an irritated toss of his head. "Didn't they teach you anything about not attracting attention in that Auror nursery school you went to?"

"If anything's going to attract attention, it'll be you with your ridiculous Muggle-wards," Potter retorted. "I have a feeling they'll think it a bit odd, me apparently sitting here having an argument with an empty barstool." He looked to the bartender, absurdly, as though expecting some sort of agreement. The man only blinked and looked swiftly away.

Shifting in his seat, affronted, Draco shrugged. "At least they won't remember my face, Potter. They'll never be able to place me here. I don't even exist to them." It irritated him, being on the defensive. "And you can laugh it up, right until one of them takes a--gun," he remembered the word almost at once, and felt an odd bit of pride, "and blasts you in some dark alley for your money or your shoes, or some other such madness. Muggles do that, you know. And I have a feeling you weren't meant for a heroic death," he added, with an ironic twist to his lips. "You've had far too many heroics as it stands. No, your death is going to be one of those let-that-be-a-lesson-to-you type of things, that Mad-eye Moody barks at the next raw batch of Aurors-in-training. Something about it being the enemy you discount that gives you a place of honor right underneath your monument."

If his words had any effect other than to annoy Potter further, he didn't see it. "Spare me the usual pureblood spiel. One day I'll find Voldemort's little book of sayings, and then we won't need to talk at all, will we?" He finished his beer and left without another word, putting a few scraps of Muggle money on the counter for his drink.

"Prick." Draco stared at the door after his foe for several long moments, a faint smile twisting his lips, until a small man with a black and rotten grin appeared at his elbow. "Did he see you?"

"Nah. I shouldn't think so." Derrick was dressed in the usual tattered overcoat and tweed that made him seem the quintessential begging barfly. "He didn't even glance my way. The bartender didn't seem to think anything was wrong with my disguise, neither. Though he did seem a bit surprised when I paid for my drink." 

"That's because it isn't a disguise, Derrick. You always look like that." Draco frowned. "How many times have I told you to get your bloody teeth fixed, Jape?" The nickname had come early and easily; the dirty man did always smile as though someone else had just been the butt of a particularly cruel joke.

"Oh, probably eight or ten times, by now. You keep right on telling and I keep right on ignoring." Jape smiled too often, for a man with rotten teeth, Draco thought. "Besides, you should see the way it scares the muggle-lovers. Not everyone can shake the piss out of someone with a flash of pearly whites." After a moment's thought, he added, "Though you seem to do right well for yourself."

"Glad to hear it." Unlike many of the Dark Lord's lieutenants who ruled their cabals with an iron fist, including his own father, Draco never batted an eye at insolence. _I want to command men, not sheep. Women, not cattle. _So long as they obeyed his real commands, he let them have their fun. And it worked: unlike most of the other groups, he only had to make the Devil's Example, as it had come to be called, perhaps twice in the year, and he currently attracted more recruits than any other sect in the order. That much was to be expected. _If they thought I was weak, they'd remove me in a second. But they know they're better off under me than most anyone else. In the last three or four years, I've shown them that much. My star is rising, not falling. _"Did he see Istvan?"

Derrick snorted. "**I **didn't see Istvan. He's probably bringing in the Ministry snoop right now." 

"Crabbe? Goyle?"

"With Istvan."

Draco nodded. "Spread the word; we'll split up and meet back at the cliffs. Istvan is to go straight there with his catch, but only once he's sure he hasn't been seen. Tell everyone to take their time and play it casual before they go their separate ways, too, in case we're being watched." He didn't think it likely, but being vigilant was often the difference between having a pulse and not. "Anyone brings a snoop with them to the cliff, or Dark Lord forbid, back to the hideout, it's their head."

"And here," he added, withdrawing a tiny bundle from his pocket, "I need you to put this under the floorboards of Jacob Nordenthal's home in Dublin. Right now. Get in and out as quickly as you can without being sloppy, you've only got an hour at most. And it needs to look like it's been there for a long, long time."

Another black and rotted smile, and the little man took the package, turned to the crowd, and was gone. And so, with a thump of displaced air like a small peal of thunder, was Draco.


	2. Reunion

"Careful with that!" Hermione's hands gripped her robes tightly in white-knuckled anxiety, a flush in her cheeks when she realized how shrill she must sound. _Why must it be brains **or** brawn? If they drop it… _It took an extreme force of will to stand aside while the two porters wrestled with the crystalline doorway; for all the world, it seemed as though the more she urged people to be careful, the more they sought to somehow prove that she was overreacting. _I wish they had half the sense god gave a lemming. Fumbling around like bloody broom-riding lunatics in a Quidditch game, here of all places. The Department of Mysteries!_

It was only when the portal was safely in place, and the workers safely departed, that she allowed herself to sink into her chair with a sigh of relief. The wartime budget cuts of nonessential projects had hit the Department hard, but there was nothing for it but to just draw the strings ever tighter and keep working. _Yes, keep working, with half our staff gone already, and the rest dwindling away week by week._ Her own section, the Sealed Chapter, was down to four members from nearly twelve. 

Many of the artifacts now cluttering her usually neat office had belonged to various people no longer in the service of the Department of Mysteries; the arch now leaning against her far wall had been in the care of the last to go, in fact. A quiet, shriveled little man by the name of Renwick. _Renwick? No, **F**enwick._ The man had apparently just walked out of the Ministry one day, and never come back. No notice, no tantrum, not so much as a word. He was simply gone. _Leaving that much more work for the rest of us, the little squib._

Picking idly at a loose splinter of wood on her desk, her gaze traveled around the room until it rested on the doorway. It was just over six feet tall, and perhaps four feet wide, and more elliptical than rectangular in shape. The frame itself was transparent as glass, but much harder, and faceted almost like a diamond. Departmental policy stated that any such portals were to be placed flush with the wall, so as to make it less likely that someone would enter it by mistake. And while entry into an uncharted portal was, technically, forbidden by Departmental regulations, the value of the knowledge gained by such a trip was considered by many to outweigh the risk of punishment.

Even as she watched, the air inside the frame began to ripple. Like the waves of heat sent up from a sidewalk on a hot summer day. It made her hair stand on end, though she couldn't have said why. _Maybe because Fenwick never left any notes on what it did or where it went. _The rippling continued, and she watched, enthralled. _It's eerie, but it certainly draws the eye. _

She rose, and walked over to stand in front of it. _Where does it go, I wonder? _she thought, lifting a finger to brush the glassy surface of the frame. It was warm._ Is it just a doorway that connects with some corresponding one on our world? Like a house whose rooms are separated by hundreds of miles? Or does it lead to another world entirely?_ Her mind and body tingled with anticipation. _I remember now why I transferred to the Department of Mysteries in the first place. _

But for the nonce, she had other work to do. And much as her curiosity was the driving force in her life, she was no fool, to be stepping boldly into a portal that led she-knew-not-where. With a heavy sigh, she grabbed a painter's tarpaulin that was folded onto a nearby chair and shook it out. _If I sit here and stare at it all day, I'll never get any work done, _she thought, and threw the expanse of canvas over the doorway so that it covered it to the floor. And let out a breath she hadn't known she was holding.

Abruptly, a throat cleared somewhere behind her, and she whirled. It was a tall man, unkempt and slightly stooped. "I'm here to see the Deputy Administrator." 

"Harry!" Rushing over to him, it was as though she was half a girl again, wrapping her arms around her friend in a fierce embrace; as usual, he stood there stiff and awkward to receive it, like some sort of scarecrow. She stood on tiptoe to brush a kiss across his cheek, and promptly made a face. "When was the last time you shaved? You're prickly as a porcupine."

Harry grinned. "Next you'll be telling me I've an unsavory smell."

Wrinkling her nose mischievously, she leaned forward and took an experimental sniff. "Nope. Not yet anyway." Prodding his ribs thoughtfully, she added, "You do look like you could use something to eat. What have they been feeding you over there? Bread and water?" God, but he was thin. Thinner than when she had seen him last, some months before.

He tried to wave her away, futilely. "I eat just fine. Healthy as an ox." It sounded a bit weak, as he must have known.

"Mmm-hmmm," she grunted, unconvinced. He looked tired, but not from any physical exertion. Taking his head firmly in her hands, she tilted/forced it around to catch the light.

"Ow! Hermione…" There was exasperation in his voice, but beneath it… She could see the deep bruised circles underneath his eyes. _He looks like he's been taking 'Constant Vigilance' a little too much to heart._

"How long has it been since you slept?" she asked, hands still pressed to his temples. When he did not answer, she shook her head. "This is ridiculous. Harry Potter, you may be an Auror, but you're also a man. And while I realize that makes you prey to many foolish notions, try to remember to get some rest once in a while. You're little use to anyone half-mad from exhaustion, and even less dead." She gave him a playful tap on the end of his nose with a fingernail to take some of the heat from her words, but he only smiled.

"I've missed you, 'Mione." Finally, he brought an arm across her shoulders, pulling her to him in a tired hug. "God, how long has it been?"

"Six months, give or take a few days. Not since Ron came back from Hindustan to visit." That had been a happy day, for all of them. Ever since his duties as International Cooperative Liaison for the Ministry had taken him to Asia, their dear friend had been even more of a ghost to them than Harry and Hermione had become to each other. 

Harry seemed to sense her thoughts. "Six months… It's too long. Too long. How did we ever let it become so long?"

That was a question ridiculous enough to make her smile. "In case you hadn't noticed, Mr. Auror of the Year," she offered, smiling sadly, "there's a war on. We've both been busy."

"Too busy," he said, stubbornly. "Maybe… Maybe we could get together once a week, or so."

It was a sweet pledge, but one she knew was doomed to failure. Just like every other time he had made it. "That would be nice," she said simply. The look on his face told her that he knew what was going through her mind, so she continued more gently. "I know you didn't just come here to say 'hello and how have I been.' What's wrong, Harry?"

To her vast relief, he didn't waste time with denial. "There have been… things… going on." He shook his head, apparently unsure of how to continue; Hermione didn't speak, merely waited. "I don't know where to begin."

"Begin with today, then," she suggested. 

He crossed his arms for a moment before his face lit up. "I've got a better idea," he interjected, smiling. "Let's go somewhere decent and get a bite to eat. All right?"

Hermione groaned. _I knew it. I bloody knew it. As soon as he walked in that door, I knew he was going to put his foot in something. _She studied his pleading expression, tapping her foot. _I'm pulling double and triple shifts, I've got three weeks' worth of reports piled on my desk, and I have to draw up the revised Chapter budget by tomorrow afternoon. _"Harry," she began, "we're really pretty swamped right now, and I don't think-"

"Never mind all that. We've been swamped for years, and you know as well as I do that you never really get out from under. Just say yes." _Typical. He just expects me to drop everything and go running off to- to…._

__

Sigh. "Where exactly are we running off to?"

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An hour later, they had finally managed to secure a small table at the Thaumaturgical Gardens, and were sipping (or in Harry's case, practically swimming in) a glass or two of surprisingly fine white wine. "All right," Hermione said at length, "are you going to spill your guts now?" She took his shrug for assent and continued while he took another long draught. "You've had to take that same elevator in the Ministry Building a hundred times in the last month; what made you choose today to ride it to the Department of Mysteries?"

"First things first," Harry said, holding up a hand. "How's- your son?" He watched her over his wineglass.

She bristled at the implication of the pause in his question: either Harry was very uncomfortable on the subject, or he had simply forgotten her child's name. "_Galen_ is staying with my parents," she said stiffly.

Harry held his hands up, half-pleading. "Sorry, sorry. It's been a long time." She snorted, but nodded gruffly, and he continued. "He must be what, two?"

Hermione nodded. "His birthday was three weeks ago." She looked away. "I tried to get an invitation to you, but Kingsley said you were… busy." _At least it was likely true: I never pegged Kingsley as the type to play secretary and screen someone's calls. _Why did it still sting?

He looked stricken. "I'm sorry, Hermione. It was all cloak-and-dagger, and I couldn't be reached." A shake of his head, and the lightning-bolt scar was suddenly visible through a part in the thicket of hair. 

"We didn't come here to talk about my son, Harry," she said in a tone that unequivocally said that the subject was closed. "What made you come to me today, of all days?"

"You still won't tell me about him, will you?" Her eyes glittered dangerously, and he held up a hand. "All right, all right. I'll tell you why I came to see you; Jacob."

She blinked, confused. "Jacob…?"

"Jacob Nordenthal." Harry shook his head and downed the dregs in the bottom of his wineglass. "I doubt you know him. You might have met at a Ministry function or two, he used to work with the Nonmagical Creature Relations Committee."

"NCRC? Muggle relations, right?"

"Yeah, among other things…" he looked uncomfortable for a moment; had he only now caught himself referring to Muggles as 'nonmagical creatures'? "Anyway… He and I have been friends since I first entered the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. There were a couple of times we even had to work together, when we tried to alert the Muggles to the threat that Voldemort posed." His eyes were brooding, angry. "Three whole months we worked, around the clock, to open lines of communication with them. To extend our hand to them." He looked as though he wanted to spit. "What a fucking waste of time. It took a bloodbath to get them to open their bloody eyes." 

"And by then it was too late…" Hermione finished, with a shiver. _With so many of their own dead by the hands of wizards, the Muggles could never trust us. _It had taken months for the Obliviators to pacify their governments; ironically, it would not have been possible had the governments in question not had such a policy of keeping such things secret from their populations in the first place. The public never learned the details; they just were left to bury their dead. Hermione felt sick. To cover it, she spoke quickly. "You were saying, about Jacob…?"

The wine bottle was hovering unsupported over Harry's glass, emptying what must have been the dregs into the fine crystal. "Right. Jacob." He took a drink, made a face. _Definitely the dregs._ "After that business with the Muggles, he and I stayed pretty good friends. Until today." The last two words sounded heavy, and Hermione was not surprised to see him signaling for another bottle when their salads finally arrived. _If I thought it would do any good, I'd suggest that he slow it down a bit. _

"Today? What happened today?" she asked between bites. The dressing was a fine vinaigrette, she noted, pleased. 

"Malfoy happened." His voice was curt, bitter. His salad sat, untouched.

Her eyes widened. "Malfoy? Draco? Or Lucius?"

"Draco," he said impatiently. "You see, he and I…" He hesitated. "He and I have been in contact."

"In contact?" she echoed. Hermione cocked her head, confused. "What do you mean, contact? Whatever for?"

His eyes met hers unflinchingly. "To talk business."

She nearly choked on a bit of mushroom. "_Business!?_" she managed finally. _Has he finally gone mad? Draco Malfoy?_

"It's not exactly what you must think, Hermione," he said quickly.

"I don't think it would be a good idea for me to tell you what I think, Harry Potter," she said fervently. "Maybe you should explain yourself instead."

"Well, this could take a while…"

"I have no doubt."

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Some time later, the second bottle was empty, and Hermione's throat was dry. "You _trade_ with that man? You trade people's _lives_?" She knew she sounded shrill, but she didn't care. _God, what has happened to him? What happened to the boy I knew, the hero?_

He looked up at her miserably. _There's the boy. _"It didn't start out that way, I told you. It just… The stakes went up." Green eyes bored into her own. "When Charlie died, the stakes went up."

"Charlie…" She shook her head sadly, remembering. "That was several years ago, Harry," she said at last. "Have you been meeting with Draco all this time?"

"Well, what was I supposed to do? The Death Eaters had snatched up half the bleeding continent while I was drinking myself blind over that- that bitch!" He spat the words. "They took the cities, and _then they just sat. _And waited. And dug in. We went for weeks without a single arrest, without so much as a hint of where Voldemort was or what he was doing. I thought we had lost." _And so did I. Maybe we did._

Hermione studied his gaunt face. "And so you bargain with the devil."

"Yes." He stared back, hard. "I bargain with the devil. He came to me, remember? I didn't go to him."

That was exactly what bothered Hermione. "Yes, _he _came to _you_, Harry. What game is he playing? He was a malicious little bastard when we were in school, and I can't imagine he's changed."

Harry looked disgusted. "I know he's plotting like mad, and you know what? I don't care. He didn't like all the sitting and doing nothing any better than I did. We needed to _fight_. Besides, what was I going to tell Arthur and Molly? What was I going to say when they asked what the Ministry was doing to bring their son's killers to justice? 'Oh, I'm sorry, Arthur, I'm sorry, Molly, but we seem to be in a bit of a dry spell. Afraid we can't do a goddamned thing.'" His voice was ragged, and he took another long, long drink.

"That's just it, Harry," she said gently. "You _can't _do anything for their son. I loved Charlie as much as you did, but he's gone. Gone like every other good wizard in Romania, or Poland, or anywhere else in that part of Europe."

"And what about those wizards? Not just Charlie, but all the rest? Don't they deserve more than this waiting game, this stupid cat-and-mouse?"

"Now you're talking nonsense," she retorted, a shade more harshly than she had intended. "It doesn't do them any good to throw fuel on a fire that threatens us all. It doesn't do them any good for you to play Faust and Mephistopheles with Draco Malfoy. And it won't do them a lick of good for you to run off and get yourself killed."

Her best and oldest friend stared at her hard, and for a moment she saw such a rage in his eyes… She could have sworn he wanted to hit her. Then the moment was gone, and his lips curved in what could loosely be termed a smile, though it didn't reach his eyes. "Now I remember why I hadn't come to see you in so long. The truth… has a bit of a sting."

She returned his smile, but refused to be sidetracked. "Before we went on that merry little chase, you were about to tell me how Draco managed to ruin things with your friend."

"Ah. Yes." He didn't look particularly happy that she had remembered. "Well, to make a long story short…" She didn't rise to the bait. "Jacob's name was on that last list of Draco's. The one I got today."

Silence, for perhaps the span of a dozen heartbeats. Hermione simply didn't know what to say, and a look had come into Harry's eyes that suggested that he was looking at her without really seeing her. _No wonder he looks like death on a cracker. His friend… _She shook her head. "He's your _friend_, Harry. Did you actually take Draco's word on the matter?" Incredulity nearly cracked her voice.

He shot her a look for her tone. "No. I didn't take his bloody word for it. I went to see Jacob myself." 

The silence hung in the air until Hermione couldn't stand it. "…And?"

He blinked a couple of times, and reached into his robes. When he withdrew his hand, it was tightly wrapped around a pendant on a necklace he was wearing. _Since when does he wear jewelry?_ "Do you know what this is?" Dangling from the bottom of his fist was a silver chain, upon which hung a small golden charm wrought in the shape of a phoenix, wings upswept. 

She squinted, peering closely at it. _If nothing else, it's a pretty piece of work. _"No, I don't think so."

"I didn't think you did. They were a bit after your time." She let that one go. "These are the new detectors that Kingsley's been so excited about: they're sensitive to pretty much all the different kinds of Dark Magic. I mean, you can practically smell a Dark wizard with one of these, if you know what you're looking for." For the first time since he had walked into her office, Hermione thought she heard true enthusiasm in his voice. _Naturally. Give him a new gadget, and he goes hog wild. _It was almost sad.

"They finally got them to work?" She was at least mildly interested, she had to admit. For fairness' sake. "How did they isolate the thaumaturgical signatures of Dark magic?" Before he could answer, she mentally kicked herself and held up a hand. "No, never mind, it doesn't matter. What does that have to do with your friend?"

"Just this. By the time I reached his home, I had pretty well convinced myself of the ridiculousness of the entire affair. I mean, the more I thought about it, the sillier the whole idea became. I walked into that room ready to tell him everything, and just wanting to hear him dismiss the accusation. He was going to laugh and I was going to laugh, and all would have been forgotten. But when I stepped through the door, this little charm started humming. Just enough to make me itch, not like when someone's worked an Unforgivable. But…."

Hermione herself was starting to feel a bit shaken. "Go on."

"I just stopped, dead in my tracks. And I looked at him. He looked up from his desk, and smiled, and called out something. I think he was greeting me, I'm not sure. I do remember that I just looked at him. Without saying a word." He swallowed, hard. "Finally, I said 'Why?' He looked at me again, and something in my face must have told him what I meant, because the next thing I knew, his face just crumpled. He started crying." Harry sounded detached, numb. "I'd never seen him cry before. Tears were just streaming down his cheeks. And again, all I could manage to say was 'Why?' And he wouldn't answer me. All he would say was 'The poor children. The _children._' Over and over again. The children." He blinked his green eyes again.

Tentatively at first, but then firmly, Hermione caught and squeezed his hand. _He came to me for strength, I think. Not platitudes. _"What happened then?" she coaxed.

He held on to her hand. "Nothing happened. I just turned around and walked out. Walked for an hour or two, I think. I don't remember much of it, to tell you the truth. It's dangerous for one of the Order to be out alone like I was, but I didn't care." He blew out a breath. "Maybe I was hoping someone would come and try to take me. I know I wanted to kill someone. Anyone."

Hermione wanted to wince at the words, coming as they were from her oldest friend. "But you didn't kill Jacob." It just managed to be a statement, rather than a question.

"No. I didn't kill Jacob." He let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair, and his next words grated harshly. "But I should have. I should have wrapped my fingers around his neck and squeezed until his face turned black. I should have torn that bastard's heart out and spat on his grave. But no, I didn't."

She looked away. Too many times she had seen men and women turn grief to bloodlust. The Department of Magical Law Enforcement was full of them. It was terrible to watch them go about their lives, from desperate decision to desperate decision, almost as though they punished themselves for living. Their survival rate rarely topped three years. _I'm not going to let that happen to you._

There was only one question she had left to ask. "What about Jacob?"

He looked blank for a long couple of moments, long enough that she wondered if he had even heard. At last, he spoke. "There's a guy at the Department. Auror. Name of Buchvold. He owes me a favor." Harry's voice was heavy, deadened.

She didn't remember any Auror named Buchvold from her days in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, but undoubtedly many things had changed since those years. Anyway, the implication was plain. "An 'accident'?" She studied his face as he nodded. "Maybe… Maybe that's for the best. It'll save his family's name, and… He was your friend." _And I hope to God you're never able to carry something like that out yourself._

Harry shrugged with one shoulder. "I've buried friends before. This won't be the last time."

There wasn't much Hermione could say to that. _Will I be the one to bury you?_


End file.
